Category: Event

World B. Free

This poem helps explain why I'll always be in love with basketball.

 

 

Twenty-five years ago

I went with my dad

To an old stadium

Gone and dearly departed

If not regretfully

To see my Indiana Pacers who

I loved stridently

At home

In the new Curtis Mathes set that

How were we to know

Lasted far too long

 

 

But there in person

For the first time

Was a different kind of feeling

Since they were bad

And most of my focus

Started and stopped on a man named

World B. Free

Although I’m not sure how much of

This poem

Is true

I have no doubt

About World B. Free

 

 

It started with his hair

Though it was not exceptional

Except in its lack of exception

Stuck in a time

I may never understand

But all the rest fit too

How much he loved the game

Even when it was an awful game

And tried without ever looking

As if he were trying

 

 

Mostly though

The shooting

Like little orange only rainbows

Up and down

With no gold at the end

Only more orange

And then at its beginning

The look that might have been a smile

If he’d known no one was watching

 

 

At the end of the game

It seems that no one else noticed him

Because watching him play

Might have kept someone from skipping school

As it did me from stealing gum

Off the too short racks

Meant to taunt me

At the store

But lots of kids did that

And their parents drank too much

Cheated with a waitress

Then left home

(Not because of the children)

Even though they’d seen World B. Free

On the court downtown

 

When I asked later on

My dad said he used to be called Lloyd

That may well be

But he was always World B. to me

  

 

© Gayle Force Press 2002

 

 

The Dancing Game

 

Yes, it's true that a) I don't celebrate Valentine's Day and b) don't think of myself as a romantic poet. Still, here's a snapshot of love. Share it with someone you love.

 

-FDO

 

 

Floating through a crowded wedding reception

We never discover the dance is a game

Focused on age or longevity

Not questioning but celebrating it,

Giving it a privileged place

 

Other couples fade from view

Just when they’re supposed to

While we keep dancing

Oblivious to the predetermined competition

That’s captured everyone else’s attention

 

The music’s still playing

Which proves to be enough for us

To continue holding each other close

While we keep on dancing

 

 

© Gayle Force Press 2007

 

 

A Thousand Stars

 

This poem was inspired by doing what we should all do on a regular basis: looking up and around.

-FDO

  

 

This was the night

Of a thousand stars

So rich and full

The earth itself seemed

To pause

In admiration

  

These thousand stars

All in their place

So near to be

So impossibly

Far apart

Making belts

Crabs, cups and crowns

 

 My thousand stars

All waiting outside

Knocking silently

At my door

Allowing me

To discover them

 

 

© Gayle Force Press 2003

 

Reflecting on John Lewis

 

As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the historic Selma march I want to take a moment to reflect on the life and career of John Lewis, one of my personal heroes.

 

“Registering to vote is an act of commitment to the American ideal. It is patriotic. The Federal Government must decide whether it wants to let Southern Negroes register. It must make that choice this summer, or make us all witnesses to the lynching of democracy.”

 

-John Lewis

 

 

John Lewis was a young college student when he got his start as an activist in the Nashville Student Movement. Lewis was often viewed as the prodigy of the movement as he was the youngest of the “Big Six” leaders of the Civil Rights Movement by a full decade.

 

 

As a co-founder and an early chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Lewis first became a national figure during the Freedom Rides of 1961. It was during this endeavor to desegregate public facilities in the South that Lewis was beaten so badly many feared his death was imminent.

 

Continuing his leadership of SNCC, Lewis was one of the speakers at the legendary 1963 March on Washington. SNCC worked throughout the South to develop Freedom Schools that trained nonviolent activists and 1964’s Freedom Summer efforts at registering potential Black voters.

 

Lewis was also one of the leaders of the Selma, Alabama march now referred to as “Bloody Sunday” because of the brutal beating Lewis and many other nonviolent protestors received at the hands (and clubs) of the Alabama State Police. It is this march we celebrated last weekend.  

 

As the sixties came to an end, Lewis became deeply involved in electoral politics. Initially, he became a prominent advisor for Robert F. Kennedy’s Presidential campaign in 1968. For the last quarter century, Lewis has served his country as a member of Congress from Georgia.

 

In some respects, Lewis is considered the conscience of the national Democratic party. It was Lewis' decision to switch his support from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary that opened the floodgates of superdelegates declaring Obama their preferred candidate.

 

Lewis continues to fight for human rights to this day. His efforts to pursue justice have extended well beyond his original pursuit of racial equality to include a whole host of social concerns. Still, he is widely perceived as the most important living link to the Civil Rights Movement.

  

I continue to be grateful for John Lewis. You should be too.

 

 

FDO

 

 

Justified Use of Force

 

Every year there’s a new one

A Diallo, Bell, Brown

Ford, Garner, Rice or me

 

Clamoring loudly

Broken faces on TV

We ask so many questions

But no one’s forced to answer

 

With sympathy’s short half-life

Soon most are hoping for the noise to stop

And the questions to disappear once again

 

Just like us

In our lives

And our deaths

 

 

 © Gayle Force Press 2015

 

 

Justified Use of Force

 

This summer I told a friend that I couldn't write any more poems about police brutality. So here's an old one. Again. I initially wrote this poem in 2002 and when performing it in public through the years have changed/updated the names. Mike Brown  Eric Garner is only the most recent addition to the litany of blood.

 

 

Justified Use of Force

   

Every month there’s a new one

A Diallo, Bell, Brown

Ford, Garner, Rice or me

 

Clamoring loudly

Broken faces on TV

We ask so many questions

But no one’s forced to answer

 

With sympathy’s short half-life

Soon most are hoping for the noise to stop

And the questions to disappear once again

 

Just like us

In our lives

And our deaths

 

 

© Gayle Force Press 2014

  

 

Blackface

 

The face in the mirror

Is black

Not brown or cocoa

Or anything else

The too nice people

Might try to tell me

Since it’s about opposition

And the power of whiteness

The power they validate

By denying it exists

Comes only because I am

And must continue to be

Black

 

 

© Gayle Force Press 2003

Ferguson Takeaways 11.26

 

Right now, my main takeaway from the many enlightening ‪#‎Ferguson‬conversations happening right now is still this combination:

 

A) Darren Wilson will never have to risk jail for his decision to shoot and kill Michael Brown while Brown was unarmed

 

B) the lack of an indictment doesn't really shock anyone and

 

C) I CANNOT IMAGINE those realities being true if Wilson were Black and Brown were White.

 

 

The gulf between White and Black America is still vast, systemic and clear. I want to feel confident that #Ferguson will be a catalyst for deep, difficult conversations that lead to long lasting changes.

 

If that happens, Michael Brown will be this generation's Emmett Till. If not, we will have failed him, ourselves and our children as our parents have failed us.

 

God bless us. Every one.

 

 

FDO

One Size Fits All

 

It doesn't happen very often that I think the New York Daily News provides an important contribution to the national dialogue but this cover does exactly that. (Please take a moment to look.) Creating an explicit connection between Trayvon Martin and Emmett Till, Michael Donald, Yusef Hawkins and others puts race in the forefront of this situation. Right where it should be. 

 

As hard as it is for some of us to acknowledge, race is the defining element of the Trayvon Martin story. It was race that created the initial decision of George Zimmerman to find Trayvon suspicious and it's race that deeply animated the actions of the police, the broader community, the attorneys on both sides and probably even the jury.

 

In one sense, this is perfectly clear. Tall, skinny White teenagers like my son just don't frighten grown men. Tall, skinny Black teenagers like Trayvon do. Enough so, that millions of Americans seem to have decided that George Zimmerman undertook reasonable actions throughout his confrontation with Trayvon. 

 

This reality is heartbreaking but not shocking. Not when we take a moment to recognize just how deeply feared and mistrusted Blacks (particularly men) are in our country. That fear and mistrust is why Trayvon is dead and Zimmerman is a free man. It's also why Emmett Till, Michael Griffith, Sean Bell and so many others fit into that hoodie on the cover of the Daily News. For millions of Americans, it fits us all. 

 

 

FDO 

 

 

Justified Use of Force (for Trayvon Martin)




Every year there’s a new one
A Diallou, King or me
Clamoring loudly
Faces on TV
We ask so many questions
But no one’s forced to answer



With sympathy’s short half-life
Soon most are hoping for the noise to stop
And the questions to disappear once again
Just like us
In our lives
And our deaths



© Gayle Force Press 2002